Penitent
by The-Mighty-Third-Draft
Summary: Sandor Clegane rots on the Quiet Isle but his name is not forgotten on the mainland. While he keeps secrets old and new behind a vow of silence, Sansa's past is catching up to her in expected ways. Rebirth is there for the taking, but will forgetting the past cost her too much, in the end? Sandor/Sansa.
1. Chapter 1

**Penitent**

**1 Fugitive**

The fire had burned low when Sevron returned. He was a skinny man in a long leather coat that must have been made in Braavos. Gregor had never seen a real man dare to wear one here. He wondered if Sevron was one of_ those. _One of those..._odd,_ foul men who preferred the company of other men to the natural warmth of a woman. Sevron's skinny legs poked out the bottom. The strange foreigner wound belts around his trouser legs. Gregor happened to know he was terrified of spiders.

'What did you find?' Gregor didn't waste words, now or ever.

Sevron fidgeted with his thumb nail. He pulled his leather hood back. He bore a new scar, from the tip of his fox-like, pointy chin to just under his right cheekbone. It was red and angry, and quite fresh. Near the wall, Mako, his little companion in trade, twirled his dagger uselessly on his armoured thigh.

'He's alive,' Sevron said. 'Alive but_ not_ well. Walks with a limp. He's the gravedigger.'

'Fetch him,' the Mountain rumbled, like a volcano clearing its throat. 'Alive.'

'Aye,' Sevron nodded, idly.

He knew well that Gregor had just remarried and that his efforts were required here in the bedroom, not on the road searching for his Brother.

'But for that, it costs more. Transport, food, effort-' Sevron grinned.

Gregor snarled; 'Double then you little cunt, or I'll gut you now and do it myself.'

'Double it is,' Sevron agreed. 'For three of us. It'll take that many to cage that little shit.'

Gregor rolled his eyes and stood. He was a good foot taller than Sevron, and he weighed twice as much too.

'Little?' The Mountain roared. 'You stupid twat. If you die, you _don't_ get paid!'

Sevron watched Gregor walk by and he almost mustered some pity for the poor woman he was going to screw. He passed Mako at the door.

'Find Jons, wherever he is. Little shit is propably hiding in the nearest whorehouse. We're leaving, tonight.'

**000  
**

The light came up slowly, piercing the mist through with needle holes of slanting sunlight, like cold spotlights. The storm finally blew through and the wind changed. With it came the distant yells of the shipwrecked and the cries of feasting gulls. The sound of the thunder still rang in his ears, more terrifying than the sounds of battle. By the time the Brothers had eaten, the tide was receding, moving so fast that Dog, the shaggy mutt that belonged to the Abbey and ate all the old bones, could have run before it and been overtaken. Dog followed Sandor and Brother Shepteth onto the flats. Their rough-spun sacks fluttered in the tail of the storm winds like handkerchiefs.

Sandor no longer strode like he once had. His gait had a persistent limp. His leg grew stiff in the damp and there was no shortage of damp here. Soon he and Brother Shepteth were enveloped in the mist. Shepteth proceeded carefully, for he knew the dangers very well of the soft sea bed. Not two moons past they had losta man to quicksand. Shepteth probed the sucking sands with a stick to judge their depth and compaction and Sandor followed where he trod, to learn the way.

Sandor could hear the utter quiet ringing in his ears. Then the bell tolled on the Western Watchtower and Dog emerged from the mist to gaze at the gravedigger, who had befriended him quickly and who fed him bones at the table. Then the bell tolled again. And once more.

_Corpses_, thought Sandor. _Three tolls in a shipwreck and now I see why I'm here, trudging over this shit of a beach, a hundred miles from anywhere I've ever called home, with a one eyed man and my wounded pride. _When they paused to check the sand ahead, Dog sat down on his arse and licked his balls. he only roused himself when Sandor and Shepteth were far ahead, their breaths growing fainter and fainter.

The salty chill crept through Sandor's sandles. The storm winds blew so fiercely that a gust threatened to knock him sideways. The rocky pools that lay between the isles of saturated sand were often deeper than they looked. Many of them lead deeper into rocky, sandy caverns full of foetid seawater, undisturbed for generations. Each step was an act of faith here. Sandor didn't feel his faith was strong enough, nor his love of the Gods, but he sensed that the places that were safe to walk had a drier tone to their surface. Their path was snaking and unpredictable until at last they came upon the battered skeleton of a ship. It lay on its side like a great, beached whale. Its battered hull had split to reveal the winding, snaking innards and what was left of the cargo.

Startlingly white hammocks fluttered in the wind like shredded wings. The mast lay some way from the body of the ship, snapped like a twig by the swell. And what remained of the sailors, most of whom had been trapped or crushed by the cannon and cargo, were white, fat and stiff. _New dead then,_ he thought. As if in response to the promise of graves, Sandor's back gave a vicious pang.

The birds had already been at the bodies, stripped the eyes and much of the fat from their backs, but the flesh wasn't red like a new wound. It was pink and saturated with salt-water. Sandor bent and his rough fingers, still calloused from his years of fighting, found the delicate curve of a necklace made of pearls. He pulled it out of the sand and wiped it clean on his sleeve. It was a fine piece of jewellery with a carving of a rose at the centre. Not far away he found a parasol, and a little way into the beached leviathan, through a socket hole torn by the hidden rocks, an open chest of gold and silver, whose lock had been popped by a thief, he discerned. A thief who could not have gotten far.

_Whoever he was, he paid with his life._

Sandor turned to the sound of a footfall and he found the unfamiliar face of his Brother. Shepteth's hood had slipped back. He wore his hair almost shaved clean. There were tears on his cheeks. Sandor felt nothing. He'd been taught so far by the Abbot that the penitent man should have compassion for those who live and die, but Sandor knew a way of the world that the old man didn't.

_These salt water dogs were probably pirates. Done worse than me and make no mistake_.

He journeyed back to the open maw of the ships belly, where the rent had gone so deep it had torn into the opposite side from within. Salt water dripped onto his cowl and wet his head. Though the cloth that covered his face was fresh it already smelled of salt and damp and wind and rot. He bent over a broken man and felt nothing in his heart, nothing but a flicker of visceral fear, a reminder that all men must die.

_There's one God I like_, he thought, as he surveyed the carnage of the captains cabin from a peephole made by a cannon, loosed in the chaos of breaking ropes and wood stretched to breaking point. _The_ _Stranger. I like him. He comes and goes as he pleases. He takes whom he pleases. He has no mercy, no shit, no lies. Just business._

He found a handhold and pulled himself through the gap, just big enough for a thinner man. His thigh protested but he would not let pain be his breaker. There within he found fine silks, sodden. The remains of a fine dinner half eaten, washed to one side of the boat.

He retreated. The cargo ship had been carrying much of value but the gold therein had saved no lies and averted no tragedy, so the Hound departed, gathering what he could carry into the bag for the Brothers to keep or trade. Then he found Shepteth by the shoulder. Silently he gestured as though he were blowing a horn, and the brother did so.

It was an hour later before the four men arrived with the Isles' only horses. A grey gelding that Sandor had quietly named Brute, who despite his incapacity snapped like a warhose at everything he did not like. A sweet bay mare who was distrustful of all except the boy novice who tended her stable, and his own warhorse, Stranger, who had certainly seen better days but who received much of the mare's attention with glee.

When the four men came they bore stretchers onto which the dead were loaded, and before they departed Sandor handed them each a bag full of gold which they draped about their bodies, and then the horses pulled the dead to shore.

A salt spray from the distant sea stung his face as he turned to the wind. He could feel the grains of sand therein, and he felt them too, gritty between his toes, at his heels. He had never loved the feel of sand. It was wet and cold, it put a chill in his old bones. This damned Isle made him ache all over. Since he had risen from his brush with death he'd found himself half a man. He wasn't yet sure if he liked the feeling. He turned to follow Shepteth's torch home and he heard the scrabbling of a desperate mouse.

Then out of the fog lunged a shape whose torn gown was as ruined like her leg. A wide gash in her calf had clotted but left a dreadful mess. She struggled around the hull, her hands bloody and a couple of nails missing. There she saw him standing and for a minute she stood and stared. Then as though the exhaustion had taken her heart and soul she collapsed in a ditch in the sand where had dead man had lain until recently.

Sandor dropped beside her and pulled her face out of the mud before she drowned herself. He rolled her over. Her gown was sodden. He found a comely face that sent a glimmer of distant recognition through him. He wiped the cake of sand off her nose and mouth, scooped her up and stood, far less easily than he'd hoped. He had no horn to call for help, no voice he was permitted to use, so he walked more slowly than he'd come.

The shipwreck vanished into the mist. He peered past his face covering to where she lay cool and wrecked against his chest. Her hair showed two colours, what he could see of it. Red from tips to shoulders, brown above, as though the sea water had washed away a dye. He thought nothing of it. A whore perhaps, a stowaway, an escaped wife who sought to elude her husband. _Who knows, who cares. She won't be the first, nor the last. _He brought her to shore and handed her to one of the Isles' few women, who waited on the banks to prepare the dead.

The plump old wife of one of the old priests received her and made a loud squeak when she realised the child was alive. Then she gestured the women close, and between them they lifted the child and carried her away. It was only after the hoard had been placed in the vault and the girl was long gone that Sandor realised he'd forgotten to hand over the necklace.

Something made him stop though, a feeling which he couldn't name.

He left it laying in his pocket and went in with the Brothers for their midday meal. There was a nagging sense of premonition, a sensation of surprise and wonder. Something oddly familiar about the child, something he couldn't place, but he set about his work and put thoughts of it aside for now. _Perhaps it was just a memory, _he reasoned._ A distant recalling from another life. _

Then before he could stop himself, he was thinking of Sansa.

_No good, old man,_ he thought, as he scratched Dog behind the ear in his hut. _You'll never see her again._ Inexorably his gaze travelled to his longsword, which was on the mantel where he had put it the day he arrived._ She's far from me, in another world, gone to places I cannot follow. _

He flexed his thigh where a tight belt gripped the muscle and reminded him to limp. _Places I don't __**want**__ to follow anymore.  
_

**000**

Consciousness returned slowly, though it was a hard won thing. Sansa struggled through the fog of confusion and opened her eyes to the low, flickery light of an open hearth. A sudden spasm was followed by an abrupt sickness, and she rolled to find a bucket and gladly used it. She tasted salt and fish, blood and sickness. Pain cut through her legs and hands as it cut through her belly and she gripped the bucket and tried to fight tears. They choked her until she gave in.

'Easy now,' said a woman, who put warm hands on her shoulders and sought to give her some support. 'Easy. It's the salt water, it makes you sick, see? No cure I'm afraid, you'll have to suffer through.'

_Salt water,_ thought Sansa. She could remember swallowing it, breathing it, screaming into the freezing dark as the ship rolled, broke, pitched onto the rocks and settled. In the air bubble that had persisted against the odds, she'd clung shivering to a support post and screamed for help. A sob fought its way up her throat and she heard her own voice but struggled to connect to what was happening.

'Easy,' the woman said again, as Sansa's inside clenched and she threw up again, violently, as though there was anything left to bring up.

'Where am I?' she cried, when she could get the air to speak.

_I sound like a child,_ she thought. _What happened to me? I can't even remember that...only that they were yelling then the ship rolled over like a puppy in a puddle!_

'Safe, you're safe,' the stranger stroked her hair and offered her water. 'Drink, child, you need to or you'll soon be dry as an old fish-bone. Come on. Drink.'

Sansa did as she said but it didn't take the foul taste from her mouth and her stomach rebelled against every sip.

'I'm not dead,' she breathed, roughly, against the side of the bucket. 'Where am I!?'

'You were shipwrecked,' the stranger said, evenly. 'The Quiet Isle. If you know of it.'

'It was in my books,' Sansa said, but her belly flipped again and she hit the bedframe with a savage fear and fury. It sent a lance of pain up her arm that was so hot and intense that she yelled and didn't do it again.

'Who are _you_?'

'Elaine. My husband is the cook here-'

'Alayne,' Sansa whispered. Then a flash of information surged into her mind like a strike of lightning, took her down, and she _remembered._

She remembered his face as he fell, her Florian, skewered through the heart by the quill of a crossbow arrow. She remembered the pitch and roll of Pyter's ship, and the seasickness. She remembered stumbling toward open space, the world at her back, the floor running out - and screaming. Then..._nothing. _

'E-laine, dear,' the woman corrected her.

Sansa wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. She noticed it was heavily bandaged. She pushed herself up and found her arms weak and her back bruised.

'Yes,' she nodded quickly. 'Elaine. I'm sorry. I feel very dizzy.'

'Don't _you_ have a name?' the woman wasn't as old as Sansa had first thought. Perhaps only in her mid thirties. Sansa searched her memory.

'Sandy,' she whispered, because that was all she could think of.

Elaine gave her a smile and a nod.

'I'll empty this,' she reached for the bucket. 'You yell if you need it again before I get back.'

'How can you speak to me?' Sansa asked her. 'I thought the monks here were silent-'

'I'm not a monk,' Elaine said gently. 'The women are permitted to speak to women and to their children, and husbands may only speak to their wives and only between the hours of dusk and midnight.'

Elaine smiled. It was a blinding smile and Sansa noticed she had good teeth and bright eyes.

'How else would they have wives? Wives don't live in silence.'

Sansa just nodded her agreement. When Elaine was gone she twisted to the fireplace, hoping to find it warm. She was cold to her bones. The embers had gone dull of cold in the light of day. She eased herself out of bed. She stumbled to the window. Her legs had less strength than she'd imagined. It was frightening to be so incapacitated. Her back hurt and so did the bandaged leg she had only just noticed. She pushed the shutters open and found herself surrounded by a sharp cliff and a wall of mist. She could smell the ocean and hear the gulls.

Sansa swallowed hard, her sickness risen by that smell. By the time Elaine brought the bucket back, Sansa needed it again. The smell of regurgitated salt water and acid was enough to fuel her sickness all evening. By the time darkness rolled around, Sansa was sweating under the thin blankets.

Sansa had been asleep some time when she heard the click of a latch and a soft, warm greeting between man and wife but she didn't want to wake up. She tried to force herself back to sleep, back to the hot, close darkness that her fever had taken her into. Her belly ached and cramped and she wondered if she was going to die. Twice she had been forced to rise to empty her bowels of stinking water, and the second she'd barely made it back to the bed. She knew she was talking but she couldn't stop herself. For some time two misty figures sat beside her. Suddenly the room was far too cold and she couldn't stop shaking. No amount of blankets could warm her and she began to cry, her face buried in the pillows as a dreadful headache took her and dragged her to a place where pain was all she knew.

Every noise, every flicker of torchlight made her weep and cry out for it to stop. She kicked the blankets off, angry, but Elaine covered her back up. A man came in to feel her forehead and her pulse but she didn't hear his diagnosis. She dipped and rose, like a gull on the waves, in and out of a tormented state where she saw nightmares interspersed with memories that she wasn't sure had ever been real.

Then a face rose out of the depths. Sandor Clegane pulled her father back by the shoulder. Suddenly he was buckling to his knees. Illyn Payne drew his sword and raised it high and she was screaming, screaming, fighting against the Kingsguard who held her back. Screaming, _screaming_, until her throat hurt, then Ned Stark danced, convulsing in his death throes and sweet darkness took her then and now, and sent her into unconsciousness.

Sansa struggled free of the darkness but before the Stranger let her wake, let her rejoin the living, he sent her a vision of blood. It dripped from the ceiling, it crept up the bed, a vile, living hand grasped at her throat and squeezed, squeezed until she choked and she sat up, sticky and horrified, to find her moon blood had come again and her fever had broken.

**000**

_I'm no Lady now,_ Sansa thought. The realisation hurt a little bit, if she were to be honest with herself. _I can't expect Elaine to fill my bath tub and fetch my clothes._

Sansa was grateful though to be helped towards the bath. She resolved to do whatever she could to help here. Then Elaine sat her on a chair and a woman called Abbey, who Sansa gathered lived nest door, came in to take Sansa's arm. Abbey was a tall, broad woman with dark, short hair whose face Sansa felt oddly accustomed to very soon after meeting her. She was certainly not a pretty lass but she was strong and funny too, and Sansa felt reassured when she was around.

Sansa slid into the old iron tub and gasped in pain as every joint in her back and shoulders protested.

'You took a beating,' Abbey said, as she fetched a cloth and gestured for Sansa to lean back. She caught her hair and began to wash it over a bucket.

'Am I the _only_ person you found alive?' Sansa asked.

_My mouths till feels like gritty sand has gotten between my teeth, and I can still taste fish. **Disgusting. **_

Elaine nodded. 'You were very lucky.'

Sansa wanted to say; _I'm not lucky. Everyone I know and love is dead._ But she held her tongue. It wouldn't be wise to speak of it here.

The hot water ran through her hair, doused her scalp and Sansa began to feel better by degrees. Abbey scrubbed at it with well practised hands.

'It's very long,' she mused as she lathered a kind of home-made soap into it. 'It's dripping colour!'

Sansa went cold. She made to hide it but it was futile. _The dye must be washing out_, she realised. Abbey laughed. She gestured with the brush.

'You're not the first fugitive we've had! Come on, we won't tell anybody. Who are you, where are you from?'

Sansa felt her mask fall into place and for the first time she thanked the Queen, thanked Joff, thanked them all for teaching her how to lie. She'd practised this, she'd rehearsed it.

'My husband used to hit me,' she lied. 'One day he tried to strangle me. I ran away and I'm not going back. It's in the past now,' she held her head up. 'I don't want to think about it any more.'

Two sympathetic faces greeted her. Sansa breathed a sigh of relief. _Of course they believe me, why wouldn't they? I'm just a girl they don't know._

'I know how you feel,' Abbey patted her hand. Then they lapsed into quiet.

When Abbey was done with her soap and her rinsing and Sansa's hair began to dry, she could see the red clear as day. Tully red. As it dried it curled itself and Abbey fussed over it.

'Can you stitch, San?' Elaine asked her.

'Yes,' Sansa nodded quickly. The prospect of holding a needle delighted her far more than the recovery of her Tully hair. She found herself smiling.

'I used to make my own dresses.'

'You can help us then. You need something to wear better than a blanket!'

When the bath was done, Abbey helped her out and began to measure her while Elaine ripped up new bandages. Sansa began to feel as though some normalcy had come back into her life. She felt odd and vulnerable being naked before them, but both women seemed uninterested in her body and more excited about the dress they were planning.

'We have few colours,' Elaine bemoaned the fact. 'But you'd look ill placed in fine silks here, _my lady.'_

Sansa flushed pink.

'I-I'm not a lady!'

'You're a lords daughter, aren't you?' Elaine grinned. 'Of _course_ you are! You speak like one, you sit like one. You're the daughter of some high Lord. Is he living? Was he important?'

Sansa struggled for words.

'He died,' Sansa said quickly. 'When I was little. I was married...you know the rest.'

Both women seemed disappointed in that and Sansa supposed that their curiosity was probably innocent. A little bit of gossip to chatter about when their husbands weren't around but Sansa didn't want to be gossip, and neither was she ever going to be safe to mention Ned Stark's name again. _Not now, maybe not ever. _

_When did my life turn? It's like I'm riding a mad horse I can't stop. I wish I would make some of my own decisions, but the tide keep sweeping me out whenever I try to get control. I wish I could turn back time. I wish it would all just** stop**. _

**000**

On the seventh day, Sandor went to prayers and then he rested. This was allowed for the men who worked in hard labour. The novices and priests who prepared food and cut cloth and made torches and rope worked two weeks before rest, but the gravedigger had cut himself a finer position than that. His back needed the recovery time and his leg too, or so he said. Sandor rarely looked at the old scars. They twinged in the damp just like every injury he'd ever had, but no worse, thank the Stranger, than the spear point in his back or the broken toe that'd never quite healed. Another storm was brewing, he was sure. He could feel it, and so could Dog, who was restless as he trotted along beside Stranger.

The warhorse knew this path. He was content to trot easily through the harvest fields on the West side of the Isle. Stranger knew where the land peaked, where it dipped. He knew where the irrigation channels were, and where best to ford the little stream that ran from the well of natural drinking water that bubbled up between the rocks.

He knew when to leap and when to rest, and how to get down to the sandy side of the beach where there was a little sun on summer days. Sandor rode him into the surf just because the horse liked to go there. It was not safe to swim out far, he'd learned that the first time he'd tried. On a quiet afternoon he'd gone far past the first pile of rocks which had been levered into place to mark the safety line by a team of novices who had conceived of engineering. Sandor was a strong swimmer but a leg sliced on the hidden rocks had reminded him never to test the limits of safety unless he wished to bleed.

_No place I've ever been was safe_, he mused after, as he crawled up the beach and laughed at the blood in the sand. _Cuts, burns, bruises, bastard fucking Kings._ He'd bandaged it up, fought through the infection but not forgotten.

Stranger picked up his feet in the soft sand and Sandor felt himself smile under the covering. His burns stretched and pulled when he smiled, he didn't do it often. He leaned into the horse's gallop and let him run, listened to the gush of his breath as exertion took its toll. The warhorse wasn't so fit now, but still he galloped the length of the beach and spun around to plough into the shallows as though he were playing. Then Dog barked and ran alongside them, leaping and jumping and the horse seemed to love it.

When Stranger skidded to a stop, Sandor was smirking. He patted the old beast's neck and tossed his own head back, his breath coming shorter. _Exciting,_ he thought. _Is that all it takes these days? A fast ride on horseback? I need a fucking **fight.** **Damn** this silence.** Damn** this cowl. **Damn** this itchy fabric and **damn the Gods**, all but the Stranger. I like the Stranger. _

_One vision was all it took, Hound, and now you give your life to another master no less cruel than the little shit of a King. Gods do not love, Gods do not have pity. Gods are fuckers, like men are fuckers, and God deny you wine and women. I'd kill for a good woman. I'd kill for her, the Little Bird with her bright blue eyes and her Tully hair. I'm such a fool._

On the cliff there was a girl, standing with the aid of two wives, her plain brown dress a gentle, easy fit around a body so slim and supple Sandor knew she was new. His hungry eyes would have found her amongst the working women if she hadn't been new. Her hair was a river of red and it blew wild and free in the steady West wind. She gazed out to sea and laughed with the women. He kicked Stranger up the slope.

The horse gave a whinny as he crested the top and Dog came lurching behind him, his tail wagging and ran to the women. Sandor could have thanked the Gods then. _She is THE RESCUE GIRL_, he realised, like the knowing had been dropped into his head by a spirit who privately thought him a dim and foolish man not to have seen it sooner.

Sandor turned the horse around and watched as she dropped carefully to one knee and reached out for Dog.

'He's beautiful, look at his coat!' she cooed.

_Oh Seven fucking Gods_, he thought, when he heard her voice. With the shock of a sudden fire, a realisation raced through Sandor Clegane that made him shiver, made him heat up inside, made his cock ache and his balls tight and pulled the mask of the Brotherhood from his face so fast he felt as though he was standing, reeling in amazement.

_**Little Bird** _

Sansa raised her face as Dog licked her bandages and met his eyes. Tully blue. His breath left him in one great rush and he thanked every God he had ever known ten times over. _God's be damned, it's the Stark girl!_

Then he remembered sobbing in her bed the night of Blackwater Bay and suddenly he wanted to be elsewhere, wanted to apologise, wanted to make it right, wanted to fuck her, wanted her to be forever his. The feeling of want grew so intense that he knew he'd break a hundred oaths just to have her.

'_Little Bird,_' was all he said, very softly, so softly nobody would have heard him. Then without waiting for Dog, he turned the warhorse and kicked him, and rode away because he was in equal parts shamed and elated.

_Still a Hound, _he thought._ Still a dog. I'm still a dog and she is heir to the North, heir to a Kingdom. I'm a dog and she's a bird, the only one I ever wanted. _

'Shit!' he rasped, his vow of silence forgotten. 'Fucking _Seven __**hells!**_**'**


	2. Chapter 2

**2. The Little Bird and the Hound**

Sansa stared after the mountainous man on the monstrous black horse. She felt inexplicably shaken, as though someone had just walked over her grave. She had the sense that the Isle was somehow less safe now, her future less assured. She couldn't explain that so she didn't mention it. It was as though the wild sea of her life had whisked up another monster swell. She anticipated it with fear and dread, and a little covert excitement.

She went with the women back to the hut. She'd gained much strength but still her hands were sore. She offered to help them prepare the food. Sansa felt uncomfortable sitting around like a high-born lady while they cooked her dinner and washed her clothes, but a try with the knife peeling potatoes revealed her hands were too painful for it. Abbey gave her a spoon and told her to stir the pot. Sansa was grateful to have something to do, some way to contribute.

After a while the glow of the hearth and the pleasant company lulled her into a feeling of security and she felt safer; as though a locked door could keep anything out, keep her safe from men too big to fight off with harsh words and kitchen blades.

'That man who rode past us today. The one with the big, black charger? Who is he? Do you know of him?' she asked.

'Him?' Elaine asked. 'The novice? He's just the gravedigger. He hasn't been here very long, no more than a year. He never speaks.'

Sansa's eyes darted sideways.

'I thought...nobody here spoke,' she said, confused.

'No dear. Like this,' Elaine explained, while she gestured with her hands various symbols used to communicate by the brotherhood. 'This is _come_ and_ help_ and _water_. To be honest I think the sign language has gotten a bit out of hand. Originally they were allowed it because it was easier than trying to gesture when someone has a fever or one of the women needs the midwife. It's grown. There's a whole language. Of course...nobody does it around Elder Brother.'

Sansa shook her head.

'But...isn't that breaking the rules? Surely signing is still speaking?'

'Yes,' Elaine nodded. 'You don't think the men always obey the rules, do you? Girl, they sneak off the mainland when they can!' she laughed. 'Gods, but you _are_ young. Though, I'll tell you something about him. Something I _do_ know. That horse of his is vicious. Not three moons past one of the men tried to ride him over the low tide and go to the brothel! The horse kicked him_ stone dead_.'

Sansa stared at her.

'Dead?' she whispered. _Stranger was wild like that! I remember one of the stable boys at Winterfell tried to pet him. He nearly bit off his finger. It can't be. What would Sandor Clegane be doing on the Quiet Isle? I'm sure he doesn't even keep the Old Gods...**or** the new!_

'Nobody dares touch the horse but the gravedigger himself,' Elaine went on.

Sansa was still thinking about that when Abbey spoke up;

'Nobody's even seen his face. I've seen a few in the dark of the night but never _his!_'

'What do you mean?' Sansa asked, though she had the feeling she already knew. Abbey just smiled coquettishly. Elaine stepped in with a soft pat to the back of Sansa's hand.

'San, dear, it isn't how it's told in the books. Men have _needs _you know. Even pious men!'

'This isn't how I imagined it,' Sansa agreed.

Abbey smirked. 'I saw the gravedigger taking a piss once down by the drawbridge. He was wearing soldiers boots. He had the thickest cock I've ever seen!'

Elaine clapped her hands over Sansa's ears and cried;

'Abbey! She's but a girl, she doesn't need to hear your filth!'

Elaine was smiling though as she let Sansa go. Giggling, Abbey gestured with her fingers; a clear eight inches and then she mimicked taking it into her mouth and Sansa flushed bright red but laughed despite herself as they fell around like children.

**000**

Abbey came to take Sansa to see Elder Brother a few days later. She had regained enough strength that she could walk with an arm to hold onto. They went through the rows of little allotments, full of fruit and vegetables. Sansa asked her;

'This is what the monks do all day?'

'Yes. And brew wine and beer for sale on the mainland, to trade for things like cloth and spices. We can make a lot here but not everything.'

Sansa spied a woman tending a grove of redcurrant bushes and said;

'They wear coverings like the men-'

'To reduce temptation,' Abbey said.

She brought Sansa to the foot of a great monastery. It was so large that Sansa thought it was more like a castle - more like Winterfell with its dark, pokey, secret rooms and little hideyholes she'd enjoyed as a girl.

Abbey helped her up the stairs and knocked on the Elder Brother's door. Sansa entered at his invitation and found herself enveloped in the sickly scent of incense. It was a very small room, little more than a broom closet with a tiny, dusty window. It was stacked floor to ceiling with books and odd artefacts. Sansa even spied a few things pickled in jars. They made her skin creep.

'Ah. San, is it? Please. Come and sit down. We need to have a little talk, you and I.'

Elder Brother was an old man, bent at the lower back. His grey beard reached in groin and he wore a little cloth cap. He looked a lot like a maester but without the chain and he was a merry looking fellow with a round belly and shrewd eyes the colour of a grey storm-cloud. Sansa found a smile for politeness but she was nervous of him, because she sensed he had in his possession a quick mind, a mind that could lend itself to the discovery of secrets.

'I'm sorry I didn't come to see you sooner, and to thank you for your help, Elder Brother.'

He nodded. 'Please. Be at ease. We are glad to find you recovering. Are you well enough now? I was told you had borne an unpleasant sickness.'

'Well enough,' Sansa nodded. 'I am still quite weak.'

'Strength may take some time to return, I think. Your rescue was an unlikely one. Do you remember very much, child, about the shipwreck?'

Sansa did remember. She remembered pitching and rolling and crying and being so very sure she'd die.

'Not much,' she lied. 'It's a blur, Elder Brother. Just the men screaming and then fire. I know the ship rolled. It must have been dashed on the rocks.'

'Mmm, so we thought, but it did travel some way from the needles,' he said.

When he saw her confusion he went on; 'they are the three rocks at the tip of our Isle which so often cause wrecks. We do warn the sailors in the harbour to stay clear but the fog is treacherous here. The Gods must have some plan for you.'

Sansa wetted her lips. She was tense. She did her very best to hold a decent posture despite her exhaustion and the ache in her back, and her best to school her face. She wasn't facing Joffrey now but she knew a single slip could spell the end of her lie and Sansa wasn't sure if she was ready to run again yet. _As soon as the Queen finds me she'll have my head._ She thought briefly of Jon Snow and the wall, and Lysa Arryn and Littlefinger and an unladylike fury rose inside her. An indignance, for how she'd been treated like a brood mare and a mere conduit for their bloodline. Suddenly she felt as though going back to the mainland might be the last thing she wanted.

'I'm not sure I believe in the Gods anymore,' she said in response, though she wasn't sure why she chose that moment to be so honest.

'It matters not if you believe in the sun. It will rise anyway. Do you have family living?'

Sansa didn't have time to think deeply on his words.

'No. No family living,' she lied.

_Is Jon still alive, even? What about Bran and Rickon?_ Sansa felt a stab of excitement and need to think of them. How she wanted to see them. How awfully she'd treated Jon at Winterfell, in particular. She wanted to make up for that, but then the sensible voice spoke up;_ even if I did reach the Wall on foot before winter, where would we be then? No home, no bannermen, no coin.  
_

'Oh. Such a pity. Well, we cannot see you starve and freeze, child. On our doorstep you have landed, and you are not the first. Many of the women here have fled marriages and rapers, some have fled families inclined to take their heads for disobedience. You will find troubled souls here.'

Sansa wanted to say that she might be one of them but she wisely held her tongue.

'You are the daughter of a Lord,' he said then. 'I can see by how you sit, how you speak. If it is your desire to remain in hiding, my Lady, you had best learn to slouch.'

He was smiling. Sansa's heart was thumping.

'I don't...remember. I don't know who I am-' she began to chirp.

_When did I start to hate myself so much for these little things I do to protect my life? He hated them too. Clegane. The only one who ever told it true to me._ _Maybe Father did. But I was too angry to see it at the time. I wish I could see him again. I wish the Hound had never left me.  
_

'Neither do I,' he conceded. 'Best I do not. So. What shall we do with you? Can you work? Everyone who lives here must earn his keep.'

'I have never worked,' she said. 'But...I'd be happy to learn, Elder Brother. I don't want people to wait on me.'

He nodded mildly.

'The women mostly concern themselves with cleaning, with mending or making clothes and with preparing the food for the Brotherhood. You understand, don't you, that if I give you a room and treat you like a lady, they will soon be throwing stones at you. The women who live and work here have given up a lot to be with their husbands. It would be best for you to blend in. Safer too. Will your...husband...or _father_, be searching for you?'

Sansa swallowed hard. She saw his meaning cross his eyes and she schooled her face.

'Half the world will search for me,' she whispered.

_A brief nod. He knows it already, the sly old fox. He probably knows who I am. I'm not safe here. I'll never be safe anywhere. _That thought threatened to drag her down into helplessness.

'Then you will wear our clothes, cover your hair appropriately and hide with the women. Work finishes when the sun passes the sixth marker, which you will see on the dial outside, or when the water clock indicates. The men do not speak. You will not hear a courtesy here, they will avoid your eyes. They are sworn to silence except in the direst circumstances. You must not encourage them to talk.'

'I promise I won't,' Sansa agreed.

'The women may speak about their work, but quietly, to each other, and not to the men.'

'I understand.'

'You may take a few days to regain your strength. Stay with Elaine, I understand you have already made friends. We will prepare you a cabin for your privacy. Is this acceptable?'

'I am very grateful for all your hospitality and aid, Elder Brother.'

'You would be welcome at prayers should you choose to attend and the women's meals are served in the main hall. I have seen the hand of the Gods in many strange coincidences. I believe you were sent here for a reason. Perhaps you will find peace here through our work, or perhaps on the beach with the driftwood. We would hope that all who come here leave a little closer to the Gods, this for urchins, this for Ladies.'

'Thank you,' she whispered. 'I would not have expected such kindness.'

Elder Brother smiled warmly.

'Welcome then, to the Quiet Isle. Would you like to ask me anything?'

'How is it you are speaking to me? I thought the monks here were sworn to silence.'

He smiled.

'Silence is for those with nothing to say, child. How might I welcome you with only silence?'

Sansa nodded.

'Thank you, sir.'

Elder Brother watched her leave, his shrewd grey eyes taking in her straight back and her habit of walking with her hands folded at her belly._ A true Lady, _thought he._ I wonder if she is the missing girl, the one the towns are blabbering about. If she should be Lady Stark then she should not be working in the gardens, yet working in the gardens might be the best disguise she could have now. That red hair, those Tully eyes. It would be hard to miss Ned Stark's heir, or the boy-Kings betrothed. As if we don't hear gossip here. I do hope she does not run into Sandor. He would do well not to be recognised either. _

**000**

It was a couple of days more before Sansa got enough strength up to walk far unaided. She was grateful to Elaine and Abbey for all their help but she was also elated to be able to get away. They were the only people she knew and their houses were always open, but gossip had never really intrigued Sansa and she craved company that was more like to know of how the mainland fared, if the King had survived, if her Mother was alive. In frustration she took a skin of water and a large, ripe apple and went for a walk on the cliff path. Abbey had told her the night before to be careful around the Brothers, since some of them had not seen a comely girl in months.

Sansa took that advice to heart and she went about under an old grey cloak with a deep hood that Abbey had given her for warmth and protection. She found the east side of the Isle entirely devoid of life as most of the monks were at prayers or at their work. She walked without incident, stretching her legs and giving some use and heat to muscles that had not seen much action since she and her Father had taken their long walks at Winterfell.

Sansa found a great deal of peace there, on the rugged path hung between two terraces of lively fields, stocked to bursting with grapes for wine, plums and apples. The heat of the sun on the white cliffs was enough to encourage her to shed her cloak and drape it over one arm. Figs grew under complex glass roofs and all manner of fruits and berries with them, some from so distant a place that Sansa was surprised to find them here. She knew enough herb lore from her Mother that she could see medicinal uses for them.

She turned her face to the flats. A fine, silky breeze, warm and delicious rolled in off the low tide, coming from the distant sea. It stirred her hair and caressed her skin and made her nostalgic for the cooler, refreshing breezes of home. Sansa liked to be by the sea. She'd found that early at Kings Landing. She found the air invigorating and the sound of the waves, soothing. She picked her way down to a shingle beach.

The stones clicked and popped under her boots, lending her no help balancing at all. Sansa enjoyed the unpredictability of walking on them and soon, going along the damp beach she spied a cavern cut into the cliff. She supposed that the waves must have etched it over time, as her Father had told her when she'd asked about the sea._ It probably goes very deep. Perhaps there is a lake down there_, she thought, then with a pang of regret she thought that Arya would have loved this. _She'd have begged Father for the chance to go inside and I'd have told her not to be such a stupid little girl. I'm so sorry, Arya. So sorry for all those times I hurt you._

Sansa spun in fright when she heard a yowl. For long seconds her heart thundered in her chest. The sound was completely unexpected in the quiet and it made her skin crawl and flush pink with its urgency and pain. She edged toward the cavern. A second, this time a bark, echoed up from the depths.

_It's a dog!_ She realised. _Poor thing must be lost, or stuck!_

Gingerly she edged her way over the rough, uneven rocks at the cave mouth and peered into the dark. The sunlight didn't afford her much of a view. There was an overhang of rock of twenty feet above that preventing much light from piercing the thick gloom and it certainly made seeing the animal impossible. Nervous of sudden slips and trips and wet, mossy rocks she inched inside.

'Hello!?' she called.

A yelp, a struggle, something fell into a pool. Perhaps a little stone or a foot. Sansa yelled in fright when a shape lunged out of the black. She stumbled backwards and the heel of her boot caught in her gown. She had no time to scream. She hit the rocks so hard that the world went fuzzy. Sansa passed out in the cold, stale, stinking water of a little rockpool.

The Isle's one and only dog, a beast simply named Dog, came to her side to lick her face and drool on her cheek. He was limping on a bad foot but otherwise unharmed. Now he whined for her to wake up.

**000**

Sandor found some peace in the quiet earth. He had that same sense of timeless nothing, of mindful rest when he shovelled soil out of holes in the ground. He'd been working so long that his back hurt and his strong arms were tired. He hauled himself out of the grave, his breaths deep and noisy. He stood to stretch. His spine cricked and his neck too. He'd woken that morning aching and hot, his balls tingling. He was in need of more than the release of his own hand.

_Fucking hells, the Little Bird. Here, by chance. What mad God designed this? What bastard has seen fit to torment me so?  
_

The dirt had gotten between his toes again and it scratched the sensitive skin there. He filled his lungs with sea air and craved a real drink. Then he heard it; the smallest sound. A faint little noise. A whimper of pain. The rush of heaving, painful breaths. Then a yelp. It was so faint first he thought it was a seagull, or perhaps just a memory.

Then Dog was coming down the long field, his back leg held high off the ground. He was panting when he reached Sandor and the Hound tried to bend to pet him, to see what had happened but the dog nipped his hand and ran around his legs, whimpering and calling. He spun about and set off up the field and when the Hound didn't move, Dog turned to look at him and barked; a shrill little yip.

'Mad bastard,' Sandor muttered, but he followed.

**000**

When Sansa woke the tide had come in and it was lapping at her ears. She could feel her hair streaming in the direction of the tide as it poured into the cave mouth and emptied into the depths. She could hear the river falling away into darkness and suddenly she feared being swept into that stygian well more than anything else. She struggled to her feet, dizzy and shaking with cold and cast her eyes out to sea where the sun was preparing for its last slow motion plunge.

Her leg cramped, sending her into gasps of pain and a desperate struggle to get the muscle to release. Her hands were more lightly bandaged now. Sansa assumed she'd cut them struggling to hold onto the mast but she could not longer remember exactly what had happened that day. What had transpired before it was also, blessedly, fading. Sansa was grateful; it felt for the first time in her life like a slice of peace.

By degrees the tide had brought in bones and driftwood, and one sometimes looked like the other. Every step sent burning, throbbing pain through her foot. She fell once, tripped one a stone or the hem of her gown; she had no idea. She was sodden anyway but hitting the water was still a shock. She fought back tears and judged the distance to the steps.

_I'm a wolf_, she thought. _A wolf would get up and walk. A wolf would be brave._

'Stupid fool,' she breathed to herself. _Why did I go in there! I should have fetched one of the women to help me!_

She limped to the steps and sagged against the cliff face. Sansa gazed out to sea. In the few minutes it had taken her to get this far the glittering tide had advanced up the shingle. Now it sloshed against the bottom step and flooded into the cavern. Sansa swallowed hard around a big lump of fear. _It would have drowned me, _she realised then._ Had I broken my leg it would have drowned me right now, this instant. _

The cracked white steps were steep and uneven, ravaged by wind and rain. The tide would soon fill this space she sat in and cover the cove. Her wet clothes slowed her down. She could feel the tide pulling her hard left as it flowed in from the sea_. _Then suddenly Dog appeared. He came limping down the cliff path with a Brother on his heels and Sansa prayed to all Seven Gods in thanks for their mercy.

Sandor felt the squeeze of the belt about his thigh but this time he ignored its signal to limp and trusted that noone would see, this once, if he failed to show in incapacity. _Oh buggering hells, it's **you,** girl. It's the little bird, laying in the breaking waves like a fool. _

The setting sun refracted pearls of red off her wet hair. _Can I still speak?_ he wondered then, self doubt gnawing at his heart. _This place has given me a great deal, fed me, clothed me, kept me._

'I thought I was going to die. Thank you, thank the Seven!'

He waded in to his calves and picked her up. Her hair and gown were sodden. Her face was streaked with terrified tears and she looked less composed now than she had kneeling on the stone for Joffrey. _She must fear the water like I fear the flames,_ he thought.

'The Seven?' he said near her ear. 'Bugger that, girl. It was Dog who saved you.'

'Oh my Gods!' she keened suddenly as his voice fired off every memory she had of him and brought her crashing down into the reality the Gods had planned for her. Sansa covered her mouth with her shaking fingers as she began to cry.

Sandor carried her away from the sea. Every step hurt with the belt looped so tight around his thigh. If he was honest, his back was stiff more and more these days too. It twinged but held as he climbed the steep path up to the vinyard. Dog limped behind, panting and whining in his own discomfort. Sansa clung to Sandor. Her grip was strong but he barely felt it. His brain was buzzing with fear and need; he'd never expected to see her again. Never thought he'd smell her, nor touch her, yet here she was. Some small part of him wondered if she was a dream.

'You're alright now, Little Bird. I've got you.'

When he saw there was a man-made cave part way up, Sandor put her down in the entrance and sank to kneel beside her. These caves were used by the monks to meditate their way to freedom. Sandor wondered if they'd ever been used for a good fuck, which was exactly what he needed right now. Sansa swallowed hard, once. She gazed into the dark of his cowl and saw his eyes, shadowed though they were. With a sudden jerk she hauled the hood back and stared at his face.

'It _is_ you!' she cried. 'Oh _Mother,_ you're alive! You're here. Oh, Ser, it's actually you!'

'Aye,' he took in her face. _Still so beautiful._

Sansa gazed at him likewise, propriety forgotten.

'Less of a knight now, girl,' he sneered at the idea. 'Less of a _man_.'

Her heart overflowed with all the grief and gratitude she felt for him, for all those times he'd defended her. She touched his arm lightly. 'This time, I'll sing Florian and Jonquil. I promise. If you still want to hear it?'

Sandor closed his eyes.

'You still have a voice, little bird? After all the imp did to you? Don't caged birds refuse to sing?' he sneered.

'He was a gentleman,' she said. 'Not once did he insist I share his bed.'

'You did though,' Sandor snorted.

'No,' she shook her head softly. 'Not once.'

Then tears overflowed from her perfect blue eyes and Sandor wondered if he was going to drown in them.

'Everyone thought you were dead,' she said.

'I should be. Might have been. That buggering sister of yours was no help. I asked her for mercy and she left me cold and bleeding against a tree. Wolf _bitch.'_

'Arya? You've seen Arya!' Sansa grabbed his arms. 'Please, Ser. Tell me where she is, I beg you-'

'How should I know?' he said roughly. 'The last I saw of her was the back end of her horse bobbing away into the distance, and I was so fucked up with the _visions_ that even _that_ might have been a dream. I guess she might have gone to Braavos, she mentioned it.'

Sansa swallowed hard. Finding Arya would be near impossible if she'd travelled so far. Then the Hound returned the grip on her arms, his hands firm and calloused. It gave her strength. Suddenly she was gazing at him again. His face brought back all the bad memories, and all the good too.

'What were you doing on that ship, girl? Seven buggering hells, I thought your damned Ned Stark had taught you better.'

Sansa's lip trembled but she held her tears back. She searched the floor with her gaze.

'You don't know what happened to me. How can you growl at me when you don't know-'

Her ankle had swollen to the size of a small melon. It hurt, but not so much as the memories.

'Petyr tried to marry me-'

Sandor's hands trembled.

'What? You think men only want to kiss your _hands_, girl?'

'I put a knife in his shoulder and I ran,' she whispered. 'I thought I was going to Pentos but I must have gotten on the wrong ship. I was going to pose as a ladies maid for a rich family. Don't look at me like that!' she said, in obvious shame. 'I couldn't take any more! One family, then another, I'm just meat. I'm just a brood mare for their sons' babies and I hate it! I can't do it!'

'So you've finally seen sense,' he grunted with a grudging smirk. Sandor found himself smiling. For once, for the first time, he liked what he was hearing.

'I should have skinned Littlefinger alive when I had the chance. Did he touch you, girl?'

'No,' she shook her head. 'Ser, I-'

He shook her gently by her shoulders and he was both satisfied and disgusted with himself when she flinched.

'Don't you call me_ Ser._ Not here, not anywhere. I'm no knight and you know it. These men don't know who I am, girl. If you've got any sense you won't tell them who you are either! We have food and shelter. Don't you ruin it.'

Sansa swallowed hard.

'I'm so glad to see you.'

'Glad,' he grunted. 'Now there's a pretty song. Never thought I'd hear that from _you.'_

Sansa gazed up at him, numb in shock from the weight of the past and haunted by the memories his face dredged up. Still she was happier to see him than anyone else, and right now, the only person she'd sooner hold was her sister.

'My old life is like a bad dream,' she said softly. 'For a while, I wondered if I had a fever, if I imagined it all-'

'No dream,' he grunted.

'If not _Ser_, then what ?' she breathed. 'I won't call you Hound. Or Dog.'

'Look around you, little bird. Where the fuck do you think we are? This isn't Kings Landing. Here I'm just a man, and you're just a bird, and there are no knights or ladies or sworn shields. We're on our own. So I'm Sandor. And you're Sansa.'

'Sandy,' she whispered. 'That's the name I gave them. San, for short.'

He smirked tightly.

Then suddenly his little bird was sobbing. First she tried to stop, then she tried to hide her teeth behind her hand. She begged he release her but Sandor wouldn't have done that for all the gold in Casterley Rock. She hid her face from him. Her tears became sobs and he wondered if she'd pass out, if she'd puke, if she'd even last the night. She seemed to be falling apart and he didn't know what to do. He got angry just because he was so helpless, and when he lacked the courage and the strength to turn it on her, instead he turned it on himself and wished he could somehow pay for the pain she'd suffered. He didn't know where that altruistic tendency had come from but he was hard pressed to stop himself. He wanted to keep her safe, but Sandor Clegane was no fool - he knew the world would never be safe for either of them.

'Listen to me,' he growled, on the edge of his own small breakdown. He needed to fuck her, desperately.

'I was so frightened after you left! I was so sure he was going to have me beheaded!'

Sandor took hold of her because he needed to, he needed to feel her little warm body and he got what he wanted. She trembled in his arms. He closed his eyes.

'Little bird,' he said softly.

_It's been three years since I last saw you and you're still as beautiful as you were. More of a woman now, a fuller figure and bigger teats.__** Mine,**__ he sent it like a prayer.__** Let her be mine.**__ I need her more than wine, more than fights, more than whore in dingy rooms and the life I willingly gave up. She __**has **__to be __**mine**__._

_'Fuck_ the Elder Brother. Fuck the vow. Fuck the Gods,' he breathed suddenly. Her fingers bunched in his robe. Suddenly he wanted to take the damned thing off. He wanted to throw it into the sea and scoop her up. He still wore the linen shirt he'd arrived in and the leather beneath it, though Elder Brother had expressed his displeasure at that. _I thought of you,_ he wanted to say, _as I lay dying._ He knew he'd never have the courage to speak those words.

'There were whispers in the Eyrie, word you'd met your end on a sword,' Sansa pulled away to gaze at him.

'Grieved for me, did you?' he rasped.

'Yes,' she whispered.

The Hound fell like a man into a well. Her eyes were the same startling blue that had haunted him since they first met. A fierce protective instinct rose unlike anything he'd felt before. Suddenly letting her go, letting her into the ugly world was too much to ask of him. _All my life I've taken their damned orders and been their damned dog. Now I want something for myself and I'll kill any man who comes between us. This is the end. I have to have her, but I want her **willing.  
**_

The Hound resolved to do anything - and everything - to win her._ I once knew an ugly cunt,_ he thought grimly,_ a shitty little bastard with no meat on his bones and no talent, either, for anything but whoring and drinking who nevertheless won the heart of a maid half his age. We'll see if I can pull the same trick. Somehow._

His hands were buried in her wet cloth. The seawater was soaking into his robe, wetting his shirt. He couldn't have cared less. Sandor chanced to ride the waves of madness and sank his hand into her hair. Sansa's eyes fluttered closed and she accepted the touch automatically.

'Still soft,' he murmured. 'A proper little highborn lass. All sweet smells and clean skin,' he looked down at her.

Sansa shuddered in soft delight. It was a feeling she'd never had before. Half way between shock and pleasure. She leaned in, hooked on the delicious sensation of touch, something she'd been denied all her life. She smiled. For the very first time in so long she smiled, and she _meant_ it, and Sandor must have known it because for the briefest moment his scarred face stretched into a smile too. It faded fast like a dying flame, a little flicker of light in his personal darkness. It ignited something inside Sansa, something protective and feirce and all at once she realised she'd always loved him, and no amount of persuasion one way or the other was going to change that. She wanted to tell him so, and maybe a few years ago she'd have been dumb and crass enough to just blurt it out. But these were different times and Sansa was older and wiser - and more cautious. So she nestled that secret feeling away and it made her warm from the inside out.

'I'll take you home,' he said roughly.

As he crested over the brow of the hill, footsteps preceded the light of a lamp. In the dim sunset Sandor raised his eyes to see the Elder Brother. His hands tightened on Sansa. Suddenly a frightening thought rose under his breastbone.

_I'll kill you if you take her from me. I'd kill you to keep her. I'm no godly man. I'm no fucking monk. This girl is mine, I __**won't**__ let her go. _

Elder Brother met his eyes and held them in silence. Sandor stared back. The Hound watched the sly old Fox, the Little Bird clung to her protector. The Fox knew what the Hound intended, and he didn't dare intervene. The Little Bird would have screamed and clawed to stay beside him.

'Take me away,' Sansa burst out suddenly, unaware that the old man was watching. 'This time I want to go with you. _Please,_ Sandor. I've changed my mind, I don't want to be alone anymore.'

'Hush, girl. Quit your chirping. I'll take you away. The next man who tries to lay a hand on you will find his guts on his own dinner plate. But first you've got to get that foot wrapped.'

Sansa nodded wordlessly, then without waiting to be engaged over his decision, the Hound gathered Sansa into his arms and stood. Wordlessly he carried her past the Elder Brother and up the bank, albeit on a leg not suited to such exertion. He felt the old mans eyes on his back all the way, hot like all the fires of hell.

Sansa was buzzing when he put her down and gently slid an arm about her waist. When Elaine came to the door it was too soon to part. She wanted to stay with him, wanted to feel safe, wanted to feel that pleasure of his hand in her hair again. But he pushed her towards the woman, who gasped in shock at the sight of his face. He said nothing, and Elaine hurried her inside, pale and trembling.

**000**

The next morning, Sandor Clegane was hardly surprised to be called to the Elder Brother's study for tea and biscuits.

_Tea and biscuits, _he thought, as he took the offered chair. _Old fool is up to something again. _

'Sit, Sandor,' he said. 'You may speak.'

'Much more speaking and I might as well shuck this vow of silence,' Sandor said, with a twisted smile.

'The vow is for those who have nothing left to say,' Elder Brother pointed out. 'Come, son. You and I have been friends now for a time. Speak to me like you did when you were sick and weak. You were honest with me then. Who is she?'

Sandor sighed.

'You let this fucking world hurt her and I'll-' he trailed off.

'Nobody will hurt her, son. But you know she'll be safer if we can take steps to prevent her discovery. We need to know.'

'Her father was Eddard Stark of Winterfell,' he rasped softly. 'I was at Kings landing as Joffrey's sworn sword when she was engaged to the King. Little shit beat the girl bloody and I just stood there and watched.'

'Yet she seems to have a certain...bond with you. I would not have expected a highborn lady to behave with such...familiarity.'

'Sansa trusts me,' Clegane said. 'Fuck knows why.'

'She must have her reasons,' Elder Brother observed. 'So. Now I have two fugitives on my Isle. One heir to the North whose presence here will surely not go unnoticed forever. And one Clegane whose face could be recognised anywhere. No offence meant, son, but-'

'I know what I look like,' Sandor nodded. 'Do you want us to leave? Is that it?'

For a minute the Elder Brother was silent. Then he shook his head.

'No. What ally does she have? This Lady Stark?'

'There would be some still loyal to her Father,' Sandor said. 'But whether they'll follow a woman alone without a Lord, or rape her bloody and throw her to the dogs I can't guess.'

'And what will you do with her if she stays?'

Sandor bristled.

'What the hells do you think I am? I'm no killer of helpless girls. My brother is the monster.'

'Do you love her?' it was a very soft question.

Sandor turned his burned face away.

'Fuck off, priest.'

Elder Brother smiled.

'Alright, son,' he said easily. 'This Isle is full of men who haven't seen a pretty wench in years. That girl will draw more attention than you'll care to watch. You're to keep an eye on her. You know what happens should she come to me and weep of rapers-'

Sandor looked at him, long and hard, and his eyes said everything his mouth wanted to. _Shut up now, while you still can_. So Elder Brother held his palms open.

'Back to your work, then.'

**000**

Sansa's foot was bound tightly, but within a couple of days it had deflated so much that the healer had to wrap it again. In that time her surprise at seeing the Hound alive and well turned into fervent prayers for his safety that Sansa didn't really understand.

She found she could get around well enough on a crutch. It was two or three days more before she went very far, and then it was to the gardens with Elaine and Abbey. They found her a chair and showed her how to trim onions for drying. Sansa got the hang of it quickly but her soft hands got sore quickly on the handle.

For a few days Sansa watched him come and go. One day she skinned potatoes, the next she chopped carrots for the Brother's dinner. The day after that she began to feel she needed a bath and a rest from the chattering of the other women. Sansa was used to be able to send people away who began to annoy her, and though she liked Elaine and Abbey immensely she soon grew tired of relentless company. She followed the path the Hound had taken right down to the graveyard and crept into his secret, silent domain in the late afternoon.

There was a great, twisted tree on the egde of the cliffs, a sort of windbreak behind which Sandor often sat to eat his lunch. It was here that Sansa settled, her back to the wood, her hood hiding her face. She didn't expect anyone to come looking for her.

'You done with your gaggle of handmaidens?' asked a rasping, deep voice around the other side of the trunk. 'They finally ground you down?'

'Yes,' she smiled at the sky. Just the sound of his voice brightened her day.

Sandor grunted his amusement.

'You miss it, girl?'

'I miss not having to empty my own chamberpot,' she said. Then she slid around the trunk to sit beside him.

He was nothing but a cloak and hood, gazing out to sea. Sansa gazed into the darkness of his hood.

'Is this your job? The graveyard?'

'Aye,' he nodded. 'I dig the graves...and I cut the trees, keep them safe enough. And chop the wood for the kitchens. Should be doing that now, as it happens.'

Sansa smiled.

'I should be chopping carrots,' she held her palms out to show him. They were bright pink and blistered. Sandor laughed, a soft, gravelly little rasp that made Sansa go warm inside. She started when he flicked his sleeve back suddenly and took her hand in his. He was warm and his hands were more gentle than she remembered. _How did I never notice that?_

'You need a few callouses, girl,' he said. His thumb rubbed her wrist, a tempting, comforting little circle that was reassuring only because Sansa knew what it was going to do next. 'You'll get plenty living here.'

Sansa glanced out to sea nervously.

'How long do you think it'll be before they find me?'

'Maybe weeks,' he said. 'Maybe more. I've been ignored a full year, but I'm not important anymore.'

Sansa searched the waves.

'I won't go back to them. I won't. I'm so tired.'

'I'll keep you safe as long as I can.'

Sansa transferred her worried eyes to his face.

'You've been protecting me all along, haven't you? For a long time I didn't see it. I thought you were picking on me because I'm so stupid.'

Sandor let go of her hand and sighed.

'You_ were_ stupid. Trying to push the King off the fucking bridge.'

Sansa's eyes filled with tears because that reminded her so much of her Father's severed head.

_'I'm_ stupid,' he muttered then. 'Walked away from a perfectly fine job fucking weeks before that little cunt met his end. Should've stayed. Too late now.'

Sansa stared at him in surprise, then she softened.

'Maybe we're both idiots,' she said. 'But we're both alive. Which is more than I can say for most of my friends...and family.'

Sansa wanted to touch his hand again. She wanted to feel his skin. It was a pleasure long denied her.

'Will you be here tomorrow?' she asked.

'Aye, little bird.'

'I'll come back tomorrow.'

She made to rise but Sandor started forwards and caught her wrist in his palm.

'What about my song, girl.'

'Tomorrow,' she smiled, a bit coquettishly. His eyes flamed.

'I'll take a kiss, for saving your life again,' he teased her gently.

Sansa wasn't sure whether to baulk and run for it or give him a kiss. She didn't pull her hand away. Then suddenly, Sandor rose with a fluid ease and kissed her temple. As he did, his hand slid around her middle and pulled her in lightly. He felt her stiffen and gasp, then he felt her relax. It felt like victory. Then foolishly she tipped her head back. Maybe she intended to tease him, she wasn't sure, but he gazed at her lips hungrily. She hung there on the tipping point between a game and a promise of more, wondering what her Father would say if he could see her now.

_Not yet,_ he thought dimly, as his self control began to hurriedly pack its suitcase. _Give her chance, or I'll lose her again._ So he brushed the back of a finger down her cheek and gave her a tight little smile. Then he let her go. Sansa watched his back all the way back to his digging. He could feel her indecision. Then she took up her crutch and made her escape. He wondered if she'd come back at all.

**000**

The next afternoon, closer to sunset, Sansa came creeping along the cliff path and joined him behind the tree trunk, hidden from the prying eyes of the world above. She slid onto the driftwood bench beside him and took down her hood when she was sure they were alone.

'So you came, girl,' he said roughly.

Sansa offered him a light shrug that suggested her presence was a given. He felt very encouraged by that.

'Let me see your face. Please?' she asked.

Sandor made a noise but he pulled his hood back all the same.

'You like it girl? Get a good look.'

'It's you. It's just_ you_.'

His lips pulled upward sarcastically while his heart burned in happy delight to find her so accepting.

'Winterfell waits for you, girl. Overrun I'll bet. You should go home. Get yourself married to a kind Lord-'

'Please _shut up_,' she breathed, not looking at him. 'All I've ever heard is how I should do this or marry this. I don't_ care_ anymore.'

Silence again. Sansa realised she was sitting bolt upright and she deliberately slouched and gazed out to sea.

'You're forgetting how to be a lady,' he sounded amused.

Sansa shook her head.

'I'm not Sansa anymore. Things have changed. I was Alayne but that name just makes me think of Littlefinger.'

Sandor played with a loose string on his sleeve. He sensed that a hopelessness had descended on the girl. He was no fool. He could see the ghost of tears at the corners of her eyes. She'd been crying. He wanted to squash whatever had upset her, but he knew he wasn't big enough to squash the world.

'I was so scared,' she whispered then.

'You're still scared,' he observed roughly.

'And you're not?' she looked him in the eye. 'I think you're terrified, Sandor Clegane. That's why you're hiding on this Isle.'

He smirked, slowly.

'Maybe I just got tired, girl. Maybe I got tired of listening to little cunts like Joffrey and little birds cheeping out their pretty songs.'

'Maybe I grow tired of listening to old Dogs_ gripe_.'

He just laughed, rough and gravelly, a deep, dark voice left mostly unused. It made Sansa warm and happy to hear it.

'What about my song?' he rasped. 'You never gave it to me.'

Sansa laughed softly. Then she turned and cleared her throat delicately. Then she sang. She hadn't sung in years and it felt odd, her voice unaccustomed. Still, she remembered all the words to Florian and Jonquil and thought she felt her voice was a bit underused Sandor seemed not to care.

She was so busy remembering all the right notes that she didn't see him close his eyes, but she did hear his breath hitch. When she was done he was crying, but he hid his face by looking away from her and Sansa realised there were tears in her own eyes.

'It's not the same anymore, is it?' she whispered. 'It hurts too much to sing happy songs when everything inside you is dead as dust!'

She choked on the last word and avoided his gaze to swipe tears from her own.

'I'm so stupid,' she whispered. 'So,_ so_ stupid. I wish I'd stayed in Winterfell. I wish I'd never left.'

Sandor let out a heavy sigh and leaned against the tree. Then he said;

'Clegane Keep is a shitty little castle, half mended, on an island surrounded by dead land and horsefolk. My Brother was the monster under my bed, girl.'

Sansa sighed; 'My sister was the bug in mine. I wish I could see her now.'

'I'm not sure which is worse,' he said evenly. 'Hating your sibling...or loving him.'

'What do you know of love?' Sansa laughed. 'You're the first to say killing is the sweetest thing-'

Sandor bared his teeth in an approximation of a smile.

'What do you know,' he sneered. 'Did you love the King, girl?'

'No.'

'What about your Lord Imp?'

'Never.'

Sandor grabbed her by the shoulders and for a second he actually enjoyed her terror.

'You don't know a thing about love,' he said. He stalked away.

For a long time Sansa sat there in shock. She gazed at his back as he set about a new grave and she wanted to apologise, but she didn't trust herself not to cry. She left, creeping back to her work, wondering who he might have loved, and where she was.

**000**

The next day she was alone on the cliff seat and there was a feverish wind blowing, which whipped her hair and gown around. She watched the tide come in alone and the sun go down. Only then did she realise she was being watched. She spun and found a cloaked monk. For a brief second she entertained the terror that she'd been discovered in her affections for Sandor Clegane, but then he walked towards her and she saw his limp.

'I'm sorry-' she spilled that bit quickly. 'I didn't mean to offend you yesterday. I thought-'

'You don't understand a thing, girl,' he muttered.

Sansa wasn't sure what to say to that, so she nodded.

'I know.'

'Fuck sake,' he hissed. 'Don't you chirp your pretty songs for me. What? You think I'm going to beat you bloody if you piss me off?'

'I don't know,' she said truthfully.

He threw his hands up in irritation.

'See? You know_ nothing_. I'm not the Kings Dog now. I do what I damned well like.'

'I don't understand.'

'You think I have no heart,' he said darkly. 'And you're probably right. I had one once and it died the day my brother shoved my face in the fire. I just survive, day to day. I never thought about the future, about the things most men want. Just wine and a fuck from time to time and spending my gold on whatever would keep me sane another day. You don't know what it's like to be me, and you'll never know because your head is in the fucking clouds, as it always was-'

'So you _do_ love,' she whispered. 'I get it. You did all those awful things because you didn't want to love. Because love is what made you trust Gregor...what got you burned.'

He stared at her. All at once he deflated.

'It isn't black and white,' he said more softly.

'No,' Sansa shook her head. 'Nothing ever is.'

Sandor fell silent. Then when something seemed to be bothering him he spoke up again, uncomfortably;

'I was married. Once. For...six weeks,' he didn't look at her. 'She died.'

Then he laughed, but it was a bitter, cold laugh and Sansa knew that an explosion was coming just by how he gritted his teeth.

'That fucking** SHIT**,' he yelled, his knuckles gone white on the seat. 'That shit. My Brother. He-'

'Killed her,' Sansa guessed. A nod.

'Aye, Little bird. He killed her. Strangled her in her sleep. Her name was Elana. She had hair like yours.'

Sansa was surprised at herself. A year ago her fear of his temper would have sent her running, but now even as he fumed, his whole body taut with rage she put her hand on the back of his. Briefly she wondered if her touch would be unwelcome but he turned his hand and grasped hers. Then he broke, like a tall, strong reed in a summer breeze. Whatever he'd been holding in for so long came out like a torrent and Sansa was shocked to find herself holding him, her arms around his thick chest, her head tucked under his chin.

His broken breathing betrayed his tears but he didn't make much noise. He just buried his face in her neck and gripped her so hard Sansa wondered if he'd break something. She did the only thing she could think of - she sang. Half to hide the sounds of his grief and half because her mother had always sung to her when she was upset, and Sansa knew the Hound loved her voice. After a minute or two he snorted, but she felt it was half hearted.

'Is that why you looked out for me?' she whispered. 'My red hair?'

'At first, aye.'

Sansa released him gently and found him suddenly pliant and relaxed. She resisted the urge to let her hands wander. She wanted to touch his belly and see if it was like Jon's, all flat muscle.

'And now?'

A ruined, guilty smirk was followed by a kiss. Sansa anticipated it and she closed her eyes and let the feeling take her. His ruined cheek scratched lightly, all dry, rouched skin, but the unburned half was soft and tickly. He pushed his tongue gently into her mouth and leaned in closer. The bolt of hot need that went down her spine to pool in her belly was a surprise, but she soon grew accustomed to it and then she started to wriggle, trying to get closer.

She would have climbed into his lap if she'd thought it appropriate but she was terrified somebody would find them and report this to the Elder Brother, so she contented herself with wrapping her arms lightly around his shoulders. He was as broad as a tree and he smelled like salt and skin. Suddenly the heat between her legs became a noticeable wetness and she squirmed, hoping to get his tongue deeper, his hands more insistent.

Sansa heard the little noise first and she broke away, her lips wet and her eyes gone dark. She twisted and saw the woman standing behind her, her veil blowing in the wind. Sandor's fingers tightened on her waist but he made no move other than to stare at the intruder. Sansa covered her head quickly but she knew the woman from the gardens. She would soon report this to Elaine, and before long everyone would know.

Sandor watched her flee like a wolf. Then abruptly he rose to follow.

'No!' Sansa grabbed his hand. 'Please don't hurt her. It's too late.'

He gazed after her but then he sank to study Sansa's shining blue eyes.

'Shit,' he muttered.

Sansa took her chance. She leaned in and wrapped her arms around his middle. For a minute he went stiff, then he softened and returned her embrace and suddenly Sansa knew she'd found all the comfort she needed. Sandor played with her cloth in his blunt fingers. He buried his nose in her hair and recognised his own helplessness.

'I have to go,' she whispered. 'Tonight will be horrible.'

'Stay,' he said, very softly, as he pulled her in and touched her hair gently. 'I won't hurt you, little bird. I'll keep you safe.'

'I can't,' she said quickly.

Sansa fled up the cliff path but she looked back once, her lips and belly still tingling, still warm, still full of need. He was watching, his hood back up. Still she knew he'd watch until she was out of sight. Sansa wanted to go back down, to never be away from him again, but she knew better than to think this activity would go unnoticed.

**000**

'Oy, you little shit!' Mako grabbed the rest of the chicken and stuffed it into his mouth. Jons aimed for his hand with his knife but he missed.

'Stop fucking about. We have to go,' Sevron, the tallest, interrupted their squabbling. 'Come on, _children._'

Mako waved a small, pointed knife.

'You think you're a clever one, you bastard.'

Sevron smiled softly.

'No. I'm a idiot, but I'm fucking fast. Now get on your horse. We've got to make sixty miles, or we'll be sleeping in the fucking dirt again.'

Mako brought the knife close. Sevron slipped his hand behind his back for his own, but he didn't draw it. Not yet.

**'Pop** your eye out,' Mako grinned.

_He's pissed. _

'Mako,' Jons kicked him lightly in the shin. 'Come on, you shit. Too much fucking beer and you'd pick a fight with your reflection.'

'When I get hold of the Stark cow, I'm going to fuck her. Might be you'll get caught in the cross fire there, Sev. Might be you go down with the big fucker.'

'Shut your trap,' Jons hissed. 'You want someone else to get to him first?'

Mako turned, drunkenly, arms spread wide.

'We're the only ones in the whole fucking Kingdom who knows about it, ain't we! Fucking Sandor Clegane, hiding with a bunch of _monks_. I always wanted a piece of him.'

'You can have one, when we've got the girl,' Sev pushed him towards his saddle. 'You can fuck him for all I give a shit but you don't touch the Stark girl or we don't get paid.'

Jons smiled.

'Might be he'll fuck _you_, lad. I hear he's got a todger like a donkey. Then again your arse is used to that-'

'Fuck you, _cunt_-' Mako spat.

'_Your_ cunt,' Jons pointed at him with his blade. 'Your little arse-cunt.'

Mako lunged for him but the horse moved out of the way quick. He snarled but Sev pushed him hard, into the mud.

'Get up you _twat_,' he spat. 'And keep your gob shut. We'll get the Mountain his Brother, collect our pretty profit, then we'll exhibit Mako's torn arsehole as a curiosity. Keep the fucker drunk. He won't care.'

Sev kicked his horse before Mako could catch him and sped away, like a challenge to follow.


End file.
